Stephen Bradley spoke to shamrockrovers.ie ahead of our UEFA Conference League MD-1 clash in Prague. Kick off is at 20:00 Irish time, 21:00 CET (local). The match will be shown live on Premier Sports 2

We all but regained our league title on Friday night with an exciting 2-1 Dublin Derby win over Bohs. Having seen the game back, how do you reflect on the ninety minutes.

“What I felt afterwards is what we feel now having reviewed it. I thought we played really well and I thought what we set out to do, we did that. So on the night, I think we deserved to win.”

You’d said in your match preview here, it had the makings of an excellent game in front of a live television audience and with three excellent goals, the game didn’t disappoint.

“It was two teams who went to win the game. Lots of good players on the pitch and you could see that in the game itself. All three goals were really high level with some really good play in the game in general. You combine that with a sell-out crowd, in the best domestic stadium in the country, it was a really good advertisement for the league.”

We’ve been without Lee Grace for three games now. But his absence has been barely noticed with Cory O’Sullivan stepping in seamlessly, having not had many minutes in the games before he came back in. He’s a young player with a seemingly unflappable temperament.

“Cory has played a lot of football for us this year. It’s taken time to get him to that stage. He’s been really patient, he’s trusted us, he’s worked on his game and what you’re seeing now is the result of that. He’s a very good player, he’s one that we trust one hundred percent in any scenario in any game. We know he’s ready to stand up to it and be ready for it. So we’re delighted with how Cory has progressed but he still has loads of development in him as he’s still so young. For someone to come into that back three as Cory has, to minimise the impact of losing someone like Lee, is credit to Cory, his work rate and his quality.”

But now our focus is on our trip to Prague for our opening game in the UEFA Conference League phase against Sparta. Having played them in the Champions League qualifier only last year, can we expect a similar opponent or have you noticed any difference in their style?

“Sparta are still very similar in terms of their personnel. Their actual system is still the same, but there are definitely different changes in how they’re trying to do things within that system. That’s quite normal when a new manager comes in. So they’ve changed little bits in their system, but overall, it’s a very similar personnel and team who we’re playing. The pleasing thing is we know exactly what we’re facing in terms of players, also the environment regarding the stadium and everything that goes with that.”

We’ve sold 900 tickets for this away trip to Prague. We had over 9,000 last Friday in Tallaght Stadium. The fans have been incredible again this year following the team all over Ireland and Europe.

“If you look at Cork away recently on a Friday, then Waterford away the following Monday, again they showed up in their numbers. We sold out Tallaght last Friday and now we have 900 travelling to an away European game, which is incredible. I don’t know if you see that support around the country ever before. The fans do thank us for the nights we’ve given them, but we have to thank them for the support they give us, home and away. We know it’s not easy, but they always show up in their numbers and it means so much to us as a group. And it does count for so much on the night, in terms of being able to see and hear your own fans in the stadium, it definitely gives you that extra couple of percent you need in those big games.”

Did everyone come out ok from the Bohs game and does anyone miss the Sparta game?

“Lee Grace is still out. Other than Lee, everyone else is ok. Connor Malley is back in the group and Max Kovalevskis is back training as well. We’re all good other than Lee.”